Mothers For Eco-justice

An East L.A. family has a metal recycling plant where their back yard
used to be; in Niagara Falls, a school finds barrels of toxic waste
erupting on the playground; a line of black communities stretching from
several miles north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the Mississippi border
is dubbed “Cancer Alley” because of the abundance of toxic waste dumps
and chemical plants. Across the US, low-income and minority communities
find themselves the unwitting neighbors of toxic waste dumps, chemical
plants, and incinerators.

National statistics paint a grim
picture of what many call “environmental racism,” the deliberate
targeting of minority communities for hazardous facility sites: the US
has performed nearly all of its nuclear weapons testing on Native
American lands; when income is held constant, African-American children
are two to three times more likely to suffer from lead poisoning than
their Anglo counterparts; the portion of minorities living in
communities with incinerators is 89 percent higher than the national
average.

Coincidence? Not likely, says Grace Boggs, a longtime
environmental and civil rights activist from Detroit, Michigan. “These
companies move into low-income neighborhoods that are hungry for jobs.
They say things like, ‘We need to put a medical waste incinerator here,
and we can supply you with 80 jobs.' And they think of the people there
as passive and unable to resist.”

Evidence points to the fact
that communities are chosen for a waste-disposal facility or an
industrial plant based on demographics. In her book, Love Canal: The
Story Continues, Lois Gibbs, founder of the Center for Health,
Environment, and Justice (CHEJ), cites two reports that give some
insight into the mentality behind this practice of siting polluting
facilities near and in communities of color – one completed by Cerrell
Associates, Inc. for the State of California Solid Waste Division and
the other report prepared by Epley Associates, a public relations firm
hired by Chem Nuclear Systems, Inc. Both outline criteria for
“communities least likely to resist” the placement of toxic facilities.
The criteria include: “Southern, Midwestern, or rural communities that
demonstrate openness to the promise of economic benefits in exchange
for allowing the facilities into their areas; residents who are, on the
average, older than middle age, have a high school education or less,
and who are not involved in social issues.” The Epley report used the
term “shack” to describe living conditions in targeted communities that
fit the criteria, and “black population” to describe the race of the
residents.

The Mothers of East L.A.

The good
news is that some minority communities are fighting these toxic
intrusions and winning. One organization with a particularly impressive
track record is the Madres de Este Los Angeles – Santa Isabel, or
Mothers of East L.A. (MELASI).

In the late 1950s, many
Latin-Americans who lived in Los Angeles were forced out of their homes
to make way for the East L.A. freeway interchange. Juana Gutierrez, her
husband Ricardo, and her children were uprooted during the highway
construction and again in the 1960s to make way for the construction of
Dodger Stadium. Despite the intrusions, Gutierrez kept to her role as
mother, homemaker, and Neighborhood Watch Program organizer until 1984,
when a California State assemblywoman told her that a proposed prison
was to be built near her third home.

Then she became an activist.

Gutierrez
knocked on doors around her neighborhood, asking people to help her
block the prison. She called a May 24, 1984 meeting at her home and
invited fellow Neighborhood Watch captains who were concerned about the
deterioration a prison might bring to their neighborhood and fearful of
the dangers a breakout could mean for their families. At that meeting,
Madres de Este Los Angeles was formed.

MELASI eventually
fulfilled its main goal – it defeated the prison and saw a bill
passed that declared no state prisons could be built in Los Angeles
County. However, no sooner was that mission accomplished than MELASI
discovered that East L.A. was being targeted for a municipal waste
incinerator and an oil pipeline. (The pipeline was being routed 20
extra miles through East L.A. so as to miss the affluent beach
communities.) In the next few years, MELASI would successfully fight
off both facilities, plus a chemical treatment plant, two more
incinerators, a dump site, malathion spraying, and more.

Before
MELASI was formed, corporations found it easy to get rid of their
wastes in the Latino community by using smoke-and-mirrors tactics, says
Elsa Lopez, MELASI project director: “These companies had always come
into East L.A. and dumped their toxins. No one ever confronted them;
they would have hearings, and no one from the communities would show
up.” To further complicate matters, says Lopez, the corporations would
often pay people to sit in on the hearings and support the company's
agenda. “These people would ask questions about whatever toxic facility
was coming into East L.A., and then say, ‘I'm from the community. I'm
all for it.'”

Members say that MELASI got its name because the
at-home mothers were the only ones available to be the voice of East
L.A. residents at the hearings, which were held during the day when
others were at work. MELASI appeals directly to mothers as part of
their outreach strategy. “We ask them, ‘Are you ready to defend and
protect your family?'” says Lopez. MELASI eventually summed up the
power of the maternal protective instinct in their motto: “Not
economically rich, but culturally wealthy. Not politically powerful,
but socially conscious. Not mainstream educated, but armed with the
knowledge, commitment, and determination that only a mother can
possess.”

Celene Krauss, assistant professor of sociology at
Kean College in New Jersey, says that it's not uncommon for mothers to
take the lead in keeping toxic substances out of their communities. “By
and large, it is women in their traditional roles as mothers who make
the link between toxic wastes and their children's ill health. They
discover the hazards of toxic contamination: multiple miscarriages,
birth defects, cancer deaths, and so on.”

Armed with thorough
research, alliances with other organizations, including the Audubon
Society and Communities for a Better Environment, and a relentless
attitude, MELASI members have educated themselves and minority
communities throughout California on environmental issues, empowering
the residents to join them as they work for environmental justice.
They've lobbied city and state governments, held candlelight vigils,
networked with other organizations and churches, gone door-to-door in
neighborhoods, and mounted large media campaigns, all in the name of
making East L.A. cleaner and safer. Their reputation as a group that
wins its battles has grown to the point where their mere presence at a
meeting can signify a battle won or lost to a corporation.

“When
I first started working with MELASI,” remembers Lopez, “they sent me
alone to a town meeting. I was behind a bunch of lawyers and corporate
types, and they kept saying, ‘I don't see the president of MELASI, so
they didn't get wind of what we're doing. We've got it made.' When I
had a chance to speak, I said I was from MELASI and listed the concerns
I had brought with me, and then I added a few more based on what I had
heard the lawyers say. They looked so disappointed. I think I ruined
their day.”

Environmental justice

Although
effective minority activist groups like MELASI have existed for
years,it wasn't until 1991 that the Environmental Justice Movement
truly came into its own. In October of that year, the First National
People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was held in Washington,
DC. Says Grace Boggs, “Three hundred African-American, Native American,
Latino, and Asian-Pacific Islander grassroots activists from all over
the country gave a new definition to ‘the environment.' This definition
went beyond land, air, and water to include all the conditions that
affect our quality of life, including crime, unemployment, failing
schools, dangerous working conditions, and pesticide-filled foods.”

The
most significant outcome of the summit was the formulation of 17
Principles of Environmental Justice, which immediately took the
fledgling movement beyond the “Not In My Back Yard” mentality.

After
attending the second summit in 1994, Boggs and others founded
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ), taking much of
their inspiration from the 17 principles. “They're extraordinary and
very visionary principles,” she says. “For example, Principle 12
affirms the need ‘to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in
balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our
communities, and providing fair access for all to the full range of
resources.'” Boggs and DWEJ members referred to Principle 12 when a
company threatened to build an incinerator in their neighborhood, which
was to burn wood from demolished houses – despite the fact that much of
the wood was coated with lead-based paint. “People resisted the
factory, even though it would create new jobs, and then the whole
question of what kind of economic development we did want in our
neighborhood entered in,” says Boggs.

DWEJ has a dual purpose
that Boggs feels is the key to their success: “Our mission on the one
hand is to challenge the threats to our daily lives. But we also want
to rebuild Detroit safer, cleaner, and more self-reliant.” DWEJ and
other environmental justice organizations around the country have
introduced community gardening programs, neighborhood clean-ups, and
youth programs that help young people get in touch with and learn to
value their communities. “Inner city kids need to be related to the
land and to their elders. All people have is the image of inner city
kids smoking dope or something. They don't know this is a hunger among
the kids,” says Boggs.

Two thousand miles to the west, the
Mothers of East L.A. have discovered the same hunger among their youth.
After they defeated the prison, MELASI made the natural progression to
thinking about how to improve East L.A. as well as protect it.

“We
were very surprised at how many young people wanted to participate,”
says Elsa Lopez. Inner city youth help clean up graffiti and litter in
the business district. By means of a scholarship fund, a community
youth garden, a week-long camp at Mono Lake, and a tobacco prevention
program, MELASI members educate young people about environmental issues
and keep them connected to the community.

In addition, MELASI
has developed a Water Conservation Program, which has been emulated in
17 US cities and in South Africa. Through this program, MELASI gives
free ultra low-flush toilets, each one of which saves up to 5,000
gallons of water a year, to customers of local water utilities. MELASI
gets a rebate from the utility for each toilet they help install, and
the money is used to fund other projects.

As the environmental
justice movement continues to grow, it is evolving into an
international network of communities working not just for a higher
standard of living, but for a whole new way of living. As the last of
the 17 Principles states, “Environmental justice requires that we make
personal choices to consume as little of Mother Earth's resources and
to produce as little waste as possible, and that we make the conscious
decision to challenge and reprioritize our life-styles to ensure the
health of the natural world for present and future generations.”

Interested? Contact MELASI at . Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice can be reached at